TO CELEBRATE EU enlargement Warsaw was chosen to host an Economic Summit, with heads of state and ministers from across Europe and the states of the former Soviet Union in attendance. Anti-capitalists had other ideas and organised a counterconference and demonstration.
In a bizarre over-reaction to this "threat" Warsaw was virtually closed down, with colleges closed for a week, schools shut, railway connections to other parts of Poland suspended and the Mayor suggesting that the local population should leave town. The whole of the city centre was boarded up - some government buildings boarded up to the third floor!
More sinister, Internal Security police pressured college officials to withdraw from hosting the radical left counter-conference, under threat that their licence to issue degrees would be withdrawn.
Despite this an alternative venue was found at the last minute and the conference went ahead with speakers from Moscow, Siberia, Glasgow and London as well as key leaders of the Polish left and
On April 29 the anti-capitalists marched through Warsaw. Coaches from Germany, Hungary and the Czech Republic were barred from entering the country and Silesian miners stopped from entering the city. But despite a huge police presence (armoured cars, helicopters and roof-top snipers) over ten thousand, mainly young people participated.
As the local press reported the next day, "Why was all this money wasted on the police and security forces? The youngsters of the alter-globalist movement were fantastic. As their demonstration moved through the city, it was joined by more and more common citizens.
By the end, there were pensioners and families with small children all participating. We were told this demonstration would be a threat to Warsaw's security.
In fact, it was a happy carnival. After the great show they put on in Warsaw yesterday - if the alter-globalist movement stood in the next elections, they would get at the very least half the votes of ordinary Warsaw citizens!"
To cap off a good day members of the Revolutionary Left Current (Trotskyists in solidarity with the Fourth International and of the New Left, a new anti-capitalist group around an ex-Socialist MP, met to discuss the need for unity and the experience of building new broad anti-capitalist parties such as the Scottish Socialist Party and RESPECT. I STANDING TOGETHER
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